Unleashed Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a multidisciplinary technology that is spreading in our daily life from email filtration for spam and biomedical field applications to legal services. The technology transfer field requires well-organized and promptly managed agreement (contract) management and invention commercialization to be truly effective. AI has been considered one of the alternative tools for the complex contract management system. In this review article, we examine the current role of AI in technology transfer and review the capabilities to understand its potential future impact in this field better

The interplay between competition law and intellectual property remains the subject of much debate. Intellectual property creates monopolistic rights to protect and reward innovation and incentivise creators, whilst competition law seeks to balance these monopolistic rights by maintaining an open and competitive market. Competition and intellectual property laws, however, share similar objectives, namely improving consumer welfare and encouraging innovation across markets.

Operational excellence is probably the most undervalued intellectual asset in business practice when compared to technology and brand. However, building a business with strong operational excellence has the potential to create a sustainable competitive advantage. The foundation to building operational excellence consists of the following elements: a solid overall strategy, a well-defined business concept, and operational systems that support the business. The three levels of operational excellence are overall operational efficiency, key management independence, and a center of excellence. Those levels are supported by people with their capabilities and an overall enabling company culture. The two intellectual assets, technology and brand, are further important support elements, especially for a center of excellence within an organization. For true sustainable competitive advantage, all levels and support elements of operational excellence need to be established.

Licenses have two components: the economics and the legal provisions. Almost everyone focuses on the economics, with extensive negotiations around a term sheet. Almost everyone forgets that once the term sheet has been agreed upon, there is still the heavy lift of negotiating the legal provisions. All of this takes time.

Despite the global pandemic situation related to COVID-19, as well as recently introduced sanctions and business restrictions against Russia, during the last couple of years Russia has been experiencing a permanent growth in intellectual property (IP) dealings and transactions. For example, since 2017, as we see from annual reports of RUPTO (Rospatent),1 there has been an increase in the total number of registered license agreements. In 2018, 9,244 trademark-related grants were registered under license and franchise agreements, and 12,757 in 2022 in total. This year we expect more to come, due to a revival of IP and technology deals connected with Asia and the Middle East.

Many estimates place the future space economy at $1 trillion USD or more by 2040.1 Further, compelling research data supports the important role of strong patents and IP protections in stimulating industry and economic growth, especially in high-technology sectors such as aerospace.2 This is very likely due at least in good part to the legal and business certainties provided by patents and intellectual property.

In the business world, many perceive the concept of growth as being relatively straightforward. However, there are a multitude of factors that need to be taken into consideration when developing a growth strategy for your company and brand. One aspect of growth that some tend to overlook when trying to expand is strong partnerships. Through partnerships, a company can team up with other powerful and driven companies to achieve a common goal of growth and recognition. Brand licensing is a powerful example of a partnership that’s also an exceptionally viable growth strategy when done thoughtfully and with the right partners.

During the LES USA & Canada 2023 Annual Meeting in Chicago in October 2023, a panel of senior experts addressed how different policy orientations influence the patent and litigation ecosystem. The background for the panel was the risks inherent to innovation taken on by the inventor: The technology of the invention may fail. The technology may not be commercially successful. It may be overtaken by a better innovation. In the face of these uncertainties, the inventor should be entitled to enjoy a stable legal environment. There should be little risk that the legal rights associated with the inventor’s patent, its exploitation, and its enforcement are subject to frequent, abrupt change. The inventor should benefit from well-settled rules applied by neutral courts and by the patent office and other neutral expert government agencies. The panel reviewed the current situation across China, the European Union, and the United States. It seems that patent stability is being lost: patent rules and policy are influenced by election returns and turnover at regulatory agencies. And these are further impacted by political concerns about national security, industrial policy, and national sovereignty.